Tag Archives: house style

Resources round-up: Style

General advice on style

If you possess a general handbook about editing, it’s a good place to start when considering style. Chapter 6 of Butcher’s Copy-editing (Cambridge University Press, 2014) covers house style; Part II of Einsohn and Schwartz’s The Copyeditor’s Handbook (University of California Press, 2019) is dedicated to editorial style, and style sheets are covered in its section on basic procedures. If you’d like to consider style in a more holistic way, it’s covered sensibly by Carol Fisher Saller, who was chief copyeditor of the Chicago Manual of Style’s 16th edition, in her essay ‘What copyeditors do’ (in What Editors Do, edited by Peter Ginna, Chicago University Press, 2017), and in her own book The Subversive Copy Editor (Chicago University Press, 2016).

CIEP guides

Style is a thread that runs through editing and proofreading, which is why it’s covered in many CIEP guides. Editing Scientific and Medical Research Articles dedicates a chapter to scientific style, from terminology to capitalisation and abbreviation. The chapter on copyediting in Getting Started in Fiction Editing covers style sheets and the importance of consistency. How to Edit Cookery Books is a great illustration of how defining style is integral to editing specialist texts: in cookery books, for example, keeping to one style for measurements is particularly important. Editing for Communications Professionals, on editing for businesses and other organisations, gives tips on defining a house style, and the Your House Style guide is entirely dedicated to creating a house style. Remember, if you’re a CIEP member you can access these guides for free.

From style sheet to language guide

Certain key style guides have become widely used as sources of advice on language and grammar too. New Hart’s Rules (Oxford University Press, 2014), the Oxford style guide, is one example, as is the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS). Now in its 17th edition, the CMOS can be purchased in thumpingly large hard copy (University of Chicago, 2017), or as an online version.

It’s worth noting the origins of such giants of style and language advice. As you can read in the preface of New Hart’s Rules, Horace Henry Hart, after whom Hart’s Rules and then New Hart’s Rules were named, was the head of Oxford University Press for many decades until 1915. The first Hart’s Rules was intended for the press’s staff and was only 24 pages long. In ‘What copyeditors do’, Carol Fisher Saller writes about how the Chicago Manual of Style began:

A single style sheet might also be developed for a series of related projects. A successful style sheet might evolve into a company style manual. (The now thousand-page Chicago Manual of Style got its start in exactly that way at the University of Chicago Press.)

Academic publishing

The Chicago Manual of Style and New Hart’s Rules can be useful when defining style in academic texts; however, you may need a more specialised guide. The resources section of Editing Scientific and Medical Research Articles lists guides from such organisations as the American Institute of Physics (AIP Style Manual), the American Mathematical Society (AMS Author Handbook), the American Medical Association (AMA Manual of Style, whose website includes quizzes), the American Psychological Association (APA Style) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE Editorial Style Manual). If you’re editing in the humanities, the Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA Style Guide) also provides advice, as does the Modern Language Association (MLA Handbook).

By the way, if you’re editing journal articles, the very best place to go is the website of the journal itself, which is likely to include notes for authors and editors. Similarly, with academic books, it’s likely that the publisher will have a style guide, so if you don’t already have it, ask for it.

If you’re looking for advice on styling citations and references, Cite Them Right by Richard Pears and Graham Shields (Red Globe Press, 2019) gives the rules on a number of academic styles, from Harvard, APA and Chicago to IEEE, MHRA, MLA and Vancouver. The current 11th edition covers how to cite some unusual sources, from Snapchat to sewing patterns.

Faith-based publishing

Sometimes academic publishing, sometimes non-traditional publishing, faith-based texts also need a clear style on elements like capitalisation of key terms and how to cite scripture. Erin Brenner’s 2021 article on the ACES blog ‘Dealing with religious terms: One faith’ includes links to religious style guides.

Fiction

Style in fiction covers the consistency of the fictional world the author has created, including characters, geography and timelines, so there’s a lot to consider. Crystal Shelley provides a useful introduction in ‘Style sheets: What they are and how to use them’. This blog includes a template adapted from Louise Harnby’s style sheet template for fiction. Fiction editor Kristen Tate’s recent blog ‘What is a style sheet?’ is also worth a read.

If you’re a fiction editor, it may well be worth getting your hands on Amy J Schneider’s Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction (Chicago University Press, 2023) – its entire Part II is dedicated to building your fiction style sheet.

Non-traditional publishing

When you’re building a style guide for a non-traditional publisher like a business or another organisation, you can learn a lot from a simple trawl of the websites of your colleagues, stakeholders, associates and competitors. What do they capitalise? How do they present numbers and statistics? Larger organisations like the Local Government Association and Shelter may even have a section on their website dedicated to house style. The UK Government’s style guide is free to view online, and includes details of updates so you can see what’s changed between visits.

Many news organisations make their style guides available, from the AP (Associated Press) Stylebook to the BBC’s and The Guardian’s A–Z guidelines, free on the web. If you want your style to follow that of The Economist or The Times, you can buy their style guides in book form, in the Economist Style Guide, 12th edition (Economist Books, 2018) and The Times Style Guide: A practical guide to English usage (Times Books, 2022).

Changing styles

Finally, take a look at ‘Chicago Style Then and Now’ which describes Chicago style as it was in 1906. This first-edition Chicago style included an em space (three times a single space) between sentences; apostrophes with plurals; and semicolons inside quote marks. A useful reminder that style is always evolving, so make sure you arm yourself with the latest guidelines.

About the CIEP

The Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) is a non-profit body promoting excellence in English language editing. We set and demonstrate editorial standards, and we are a community, training hub and support network for editorial professionals – the people who work to make text accurate, clear and fit for purpose.

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Photo credits: header image by Kimberly Farmer on Unsplash, woman studying with books by SHVETS production on Pexels.

Posted by Eleanor Smith, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Compiling style guides for Christian publishers

Mary Davis: Tulips, chocolate and CPD

Near the start of my freelancing journey, I was asked to copyedit an 11,000-word manuscript by a small, independent religious publisher. Their little production team lacked specialist knowledge but were doing their best to produce quality non-fiction books for their relatively niche target market.

Their house style extended to a few bullet points on a side of A4, requesting that authors follow the Society of Biblical Literature’s SBL Handbook of Style and giving a few pointers on preferred formatting, footnotes, numbering systems and so on.

As I raised author queries and produced style sheets, it became clear to the client that there were significant inconsistencies across their publications. They asked me to do a critique of several books, and I produced a short report looking at design, formatting and style choices. There was a clear need for consistency and one of my main recommendations was the production of a more comprehensive style guide.

How did you go about it?

Soon after, the flu struck and I was in bed for days. I certainly didn’t have the energy for a meticulous copyedit or proofread, but I did have the appetite for a bit of informal continuing professional development (CPD)! I knew the client had a low budget and I decided to produce a style guide for them free of charge. I’d developed a good understanding of their authors and target readership, and my style sheets provided much of the detail. Consulting style guides from other clients and online resources, I focused particularly on presentation, which I felt would be key in encouraging authors to use it.

What did you include?

In consultation with the client, it didn’t take long to compile the finished guide – a carefully designed, six-page PDF.

Standard features: It included the things you’d expect, such as a general introduction, notes on abbreviations and contractions, UK spellings, preferred punctuation, numbers, dates and times, and book and hymn titles.
Emphasis on clarity: The writing style of some of the authors I had already copyedited was unnecessarily complicated and so the guide included an emphasis on clarity and plain English.
Interactive links: To make it user-friendly and easy to navigate, I included internal clickable links and external hyperlinks to resources like the SBL Handbook of Style and preferred dictionary.
Clear presentation: Aesthetically, I took great care with the layout, heading size and examples of correct usage, ensuring that authors would find it visually appealing and easy to use.
Personalised features: Working from my style sheets, I compiled a list of commonly used words, indicating preferred capitalisation and spelling. I also specified preferred formatting for Bible references and Bible ‘shortforms’ (abbreviations for each book of the Bible), as authors had been simply adopting their own preferred convention.
Ongoing: To facilitate updates, I supplied the client with a Word document in addition to the PDF.

What did the client think?

They sent me some tulips and chocolate in the post to say thank you! They also asked me to do some paid training with their publications manager, which I conducted online.

The guide is a number of years old now, but I asked the current publications manager to comment on its usefulness. She replied:

Our style guide has greatly benefited our publishing organisation. It provides clarity for authors who need to know what our expectations are and helps us to create a quality uniform product. From basic expectations (like grammar) to more niche requirements (like capitalisation of terminology), both our writers and editors appreciate the consistency that the style guide gives.

I didn’t get paid for this work but the six hours or so I spent on it was immensely worthwhile. Careful reading of a number of style guides was valuable in itself – and, on top of that, the project cultivated strong working relationships and resulted in a stream of ongoing work. They weren’t and aren’t my highest-paying clients – but, as well as tulips and chocolates, this project gave me confidence and specialist knowledge at a key stage in my career.

Mary’s top tips for compiling a specialist style sheet

Assess the material produced by the organisation and current authors’ writing styles. Does it match the client’s requirements?
Decide what standard features are required in the guide. Do you want to reference an existing guide or dictionary?
Working from style sheets and other sources, compile a list of commonly used words, noting preferred capitalisation and spelling.
What other guidance will be needed? The inconsistencies between publications will give you a steer on what may be required.
Take care over presentation, and include clear examples of correct usage. Internal links and external hyperlinks may be useful.

Fiona Little: Discussion and flexibility

When a client asked me to produce a style guide for an ongoing series of church reports, I welcomed the challenge. The client wanted to review the styles used in the existing reports and create a more comprehensive style guide that would ensure greater consistency in future reports in the series. Although the authors were theologians and clergy, the reports were intended to be available to lay people, so a style guide for academic theological writing might not be suitable. A tailored guide would help authors, editors and proofreaders working on the series.

Starting points

I was able to refer to previous reports in the series, all of which were in British English. The client had begun to draw up a list of preferred spellings, hyphenations, capitalisations and so on, and an author had added comments to it. There seemed to be omissions and contradictions, but the document gave me some idea of the priorities.

The main issues

Spelling

I found spelling inconsistencies not just in the existing reports but also in the client’s word list – for example, Oxford-style ‘-ize’ spellings seemed to be favoured for most words, but ‘baptise’ was preferred over ‘baptize’. After some discussion, the client decided to standardise on ‘-ize’, and we chose the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors (NODWE) as a default guide.

Punctuation

We also agreed on Oxford style (as described in New Hart’s Rules) for dates, serial commas, dashes and other aspects of punctuation. The style guide would need to outline these.

Capitalisation

Capitalisation was the biggest issue. We agreed easily on initial capitals for specific meanings as opposed to general ones (eg ‘the Father’ in reference to God); words with multiple senses needed particularly careful treatment – for example, ‘church’ was used, variously with and without capital C, for a building, a congregation, a Christian denomination (such as ‘the Church of England’) and Christian believers worldwide. The client opted for ‘the Bible’ but ‘a bible’, unlike NODWE, but followed NODWE in downcasing pronouns for God. The style guide would need to give clear examples of these usages.

References

While detailed bibliographical references were not covered, we agreed a format for references to other reports in the series, including their numbered sections.

For the frequent Bible references, the client wished to stick with the abbreviations for books of the Bible used in the New Revised Standard Version, along with a distinctive chapter-and-verse format used by a larger publisher. These choices seemed to work because their parameters were clear.

A style was also needed for the titles of documents in Latin; the client wanted italic with maximum capitals, even though normally a Latin title would have sentence-style capitalisation.

Numbers and dates

We agreed on maximum elision for number ranges (eg 341–2) and years (1988–9), following New Hart’s Rules, but we treated chapter and verse numbers in Bible references differently (see ‘References’ above).

Abbreviations

The reports used abbreviations for the names of various publications and organisations, and these needed to be listed in the style guide.

Because of the simple format of the reports, headings, lists and footnotes – among other features – were not covered.

The result

The completed style guide had short sections on all the categories highlighted above. The general reference to NODWE made a long word list unnecessary, but I listed recurrent words and names where the chosen style differed from NODWE.

Fiona’s top tips for compiling a specialist style sheet

Look carefully at the material to get a sense of the content, presentation, tone and intended readership.
Discuss the client’s preferences with them, and if their ideas appear unfeasible or inconsistent, explain the alternative options as straightforwardly as possible.
Consider whether a published style guide (eg Chicago Manual of Style, New Hart’s Rules or the American Psychological Association (APA) style guide) would cover all or most of the requirements, but don’t assume that the client will be familiar with it.
You may also find ideas in publishers’ copyediting guidelines and specific copyediting briefs.
If you base your style guide on an existing one, set out any exceptions to its guidelines clearly.
Consider organising the guide by type of text (eg headings, book titles) – this can be easier to navigate than a list of formats (eg italic, maximum capitalisation).
A couple of well-chosen examples may be easier to follow than a lengthy explanation; for instance, maximum elision of page ranges can be shown with ‘301–2, 341–5, but 315–16’.

About Mary Davis

Mary Davis’ first job was for someone who was obsessed with clear, beautifully written English. Her freelance work started soon after, alongside other jobs. It developed more formally when she undertook some training to check if her skills were fit for purpose – they were! Mary is an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP and is delighted to be doing a job that never fails to put her head in a good place.

About Fiona Little

Fiona Little, an Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP, began her editing career with work on Grove music dictionaries and later copyedited material for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Now based in Washington DC, USA, she copyedits academic texts mainly on music, history and religion.

About the CIEP

Find out more about:

Photo credits: header image by Michael Morse on Pexels, someone taking notes from a Bible by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.

Posted by Eleanor Smith, blog assistant.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Wise owls: References and citations

Hazel Bird

The most glaring issue I tend to come across when I’m editing references and citations is a complete lack of references and citations.

As issues with references go, it’s a pretty big one. But it’s understandable: not all authors have the academic background or training to know how to construct a reference list or even to know that referencing is necessary.

Editors can do a lot to help you work out what needs a reference and how to present your references, but here are a few basic tips that pretty much always apply:

If you’ve quoted somebody else’s words, you need a reference.
If you talk about a specific idea or concept originated by someone else, or if you discuss their ideas (even if you don’t quote them directly), you need a reference.
If you include statistics or results of analyses, you need a reference.
Don’t copy someone else’s exact words and present them as if they are your own, even if you provide a reference. You either need to quote them (and provide a reference) or paraphrase their ideas in your own words (and, in almost all cases, still provide a reference).
Make the reference as precise as possible – for example, include the page number or the exact URL where you found the quote.
If you want to include a quote you found on the internet, you need to check whether the person credited with the quote actually said it. Websites that host collections of quotes are notorious for their inaccuracy. Quote Investigator is a good place to start, but you might need to do some digging.
Referencing doesn’t have to be obtrusive: there are all sorts of minimal and even invisible referencing styles that editors can help you implement.

But above all, if in doubt, include a reference!

Louise Bolotin*

I don’t often edit books or papers that contain references or citations, but by far the commonest issue I come across is that they have not been properly formatted. Often, it’s a case of not having read the style guide for a journal, or someone has merged the Harvard and Vancouver styles of citation, not understanding that they are very different. The latter can take some untangling. I once had a client whose journal style guide required authors’ first names in the bibliography – there were a dozen pages of citations so I had to send that back with a note after fixing the formatting. There may be fewer rules for a bibliography in a book – here the most common problem I find is duplicate entries or incomplete entries. It can be quite time-consuming to hunt for information such as the publisher’s location or the relevant edition. It’s like doing a jigsaw puzzle and can be satisfying when you complete it.

Liz Jones

I’m not one of those editors who loves working on references and citations (apparently they do exist), but they are an essential part of our work. One of the best tips I was ever given was to work on the references before the rest of the text. For me, this has two benefits: first, I have an overview of what’s cited, can get a feel for the consistency of the references as a whole, and see what’s missing. Second, this can be a surprisingly time-consuming part of an editing job – so once it’s done, the editing part feels more relaxed (dare I say fun?).

These are some of the most common issues I encounter in references:

inconsistency of capitalisation
varying elision styles in number ranges
inconsistency of author names where they are mentioned more than once
problems with the punctuation between elements of a reference.

At copyediting stage, I find the numbering of references is less likely to go awry, as this is built into the working of the Word document, if it’s been done correctly (I realise this is a big if). Sometimes, though, note markers will exist in the text that are not linked to any reference, which can upset the numbering sequence and necessitate an author query. At proofreading stage, one of the main issues I encounter is text markers not matching the numbering of the references in endnotes, so I make sure to check this very carefully, and to double-check it if I need to suggest a change that results in renumbering.

Sue Littleford

I spend a lot of my time editing references. Here’s what I see too much of – and something I’ve only ever seen once:

Ignoring the house style – and, indeed, all issues of consistent style, including the use of et al.
Citing impossible page numbers.
Still having ‘forthcoming’ for something that was actually published in 2013.
Getting the author names out of sequence in the reference and/or citation (or spelling them four different ways within two paragraphs).
Missing out elements – I’ve had references that had the author name and an approximation of the chapter title, and nothing else.
Cutting or adding text, but not updating the references list accordingly.
Conflating references is another good one – easy for the author to do when there are several references by the same people, or similar-looking people, or similar-looking titles.
Using the reference list from an earlier version of the work (especially when theses are repurposed as books), as ‘that’ll be close enough’ (I’m quoting a client) despite the cuts and additions made to the original text. I had to polish up my crystal ball for that one.
Missing out a hard return at the end of the reference, so another one hides inside it (one of the many reasons I always edit the references first).
And in my last book, instead of using the hanging paragraph setting for the bibliography list – or even using hard returns and tabs, as too many authors do – the author used section breaks to change the margins, so each reference took two sections, one for the full-out line and another for the indented lines. Just imagine how much work that was for more than 500 references – only for me to hoick it all out without a second thought.

*Louise Bolotin died in October 2022; her contributions are much missed.

The CIEP’s References course helps you to:

learn how to deal with references
find out what you didn’t know about references and fill any gaps
explore unfamiliar reference systems
discover ways of referencing less typical sources.

Photo credits: Owl by Joe Green on Unsplash

Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.

Wise owls on editing non-fiction

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Non-fiction covers a vast array of topics, including music, psychology, architecture, science, and memoirs, and new editors may find learning and following the conventions of non-fiction daunting. Editors will be asked to work with authors who are experts in their chosen field, and you will need to (tactfully!) help them bring structure to their work as they share their extensive knowledge with their audience.

This month, the SfEP parliament of wise owls share their experience of editing non-fiction, including tips on references and style guides, and working efficiently to meet clients’ needs for consistency within an often limited budget.

Sue Littleford

Learn to love references, in all their multifarious glory. I get great satisfaction from making a clean and orderly references list from the dog’s breakfast I was handed. I edit a lot of academic tomes in HSS (humanities and social sciences) and have long realised that there are almost as many variations of Harvard as there are authors.

This is why it’s important to get a clear brief from your client. The publishers I work for vary greatly in how closely they want references to adhere to house style. Indeed, some are becoming more relaxed about it over time, often settling for ‘apply author’s style consistently’. If you are to avoid wasting a lot of time, do talk to your client about how much of your effort they want spent on changing the style of references.

One trick I’ve recently adopted is to make my own sample list of references for each of the variants in the job in hand (such as book, chapter, article, website, grey literature and archive – and some of those will have print and online variants, too). This is particularly helpful if I’m working with the short-title system, where a reference will look a little different in the note and in the bibliography, so my own note of the same reference in both presentations is an efficient way of checking I’m applying the correct version of the style in the right place – far easier than flipping through the pages of a style guide.

Liz Jones

It can seem that editing non-fiction is more bound by conventions, formats and rules than fiction. Whether you think that makes the task easier or harder is all down to personal preference! Often a non-fiction client will supply a style sheet, and even if they don’t they might indicate an established style guide that they’d like you to follow. In this way it can be quite different from editing a piece of fiction, which is much more likely to follow its own internal logic. Remember that the author’s voice can be just as distinctive and important to a piece of non-fiction – they’re still telling a story, even if it’s rooted in fact – so there’s a need to be sensitive and to think hard about what to retain as well as what to change. You might require a certain amount of tact to negotiate changes with the author to help their work conform to the required style, without applying rules slavishly and arbitrarily. Finally, non-fiction is often quite clearly structured, and this can be really helpful to the editor. Tweaking text to better fit the structural patterns that run through it can be immensely satisfying, and might make all the difference to a piece of writing – transforming it into a polished and coherent document that’s ready to be sent out into the world.

Abi Saffrey

Whenever I tell someone what I do, pretty much the first question they go on to ask is ‘What do you edit? Fiction?’ When I say that I work in non-fiction – generally economics and social policy – there is slight dismay in their faces. Fiction is the glamorous face of publishing, and non-fiction is seen as its frumpy but reliable best friend.

It’s fulfilling when my knowledge overlaps with the content I’m editing, and I can ask informed questions and add substantial value. When it’s a subject area I haven’t worked in before, I’m exhilarated by learning new things and I’m often prompted to go and read something related for pleasure.

Just as with fiction, it is critical to keep the author’s voice (or brand voice) intact and use a delicate touch to enhance the content rather than interfere with a heavy hand. Non-fiction brings with it tables, charts, diagrams and the mighty references list – they may appear intimidating at first sight but all they need is to be handled gently but authoritatively.

Non-fiction has been my bread and butter for over 17 years and I still get excited when a new project pops into my inbox – who knows what joys (and possibly terrors) those documents hold?

Sue Browning

In my experience, non-fiction publishers rarely have generous budgets, so one of the arts of making a decent living out of it is to master the various tools that can make you more efficient. These include the features available in Word, in particular keyboard shortcuts, wildcard Find & Replace and macros. Many of mine are home-grown, but I also plunder Paul Beverley’s magnificent and generous Macros for Editors. It’s also worth exploring the various add-ins you can get. I regard PerfectIt as an essential, and I also have Reference Checker (sadly no longer supported), both of which save a lot of time and help you produce a more consistent result – something that non-fiction publishers tend to be especially concerned about.

So once the mechanical style aspects have been tidied up and the references thrashed into submission, I can get down to the fun part – engaging with the content and the author. Here I particularly love the challenge of phrasing queries collaboratively (‘Perhaps we could…’, ‘Do you think x would be clearer?’) and sometimes catching the odd boo-boo, usually to the author’s heartfelt gratitude. But oh, the angst of querying a missing ‘not’ – have I completely misunderstood? will the author think I’m dumb?

Editing non-fiction can sometimes be challenging and frustrating, but it also brings the pleasure of working with subject experts and contributing to the spread of knowledge in a small but, I would argue, essential way.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the SfEP

How to customise PerfectIt to check your house style

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By Daniel Heuman

Building customised style sheets in PerfectIt helps make sure that all documents you work on reflect your or your client’s preferences for spelling, hyphenation, capitalisation, italics, and other house style choices. There are two ways to build preferences into a PerfectIt style sheet. You can either:

Commission Intelligent Editing to prepare the style sheet for you. For government departments, NGOs, and Fortune 500 companies, this is the best way to develop the most comprehensive style sheet possible.
Prepare the style sheet yourself. For freelancers and small companies, this lets you put together your own style sheet that is customised to your needs without any additional cost.

To have a style sheet prepared for you, you can get a quote from Intelligent Editing. This article is for people who want to prepare their own style sheet. It guides you through ten short videos that, in less than one hour, will teach you how to prepare your style sheet.

Do I need to customise PerfectIt?

PerfectIt doesn’t need any kind of customisation. You can use it to check consistency without altering any settings. Just run it, click ‘Start’, and the interface guides you through the rest. Most people find that’s all they need, without any customisation. If you haven’t ever used PerfectIt, start with the free trial, which you can download here.

PerfectIt also comes with a number of built-in styles, including European Union, Australian Government, World Health Organization, and United Nations styles. If you’re using those (or if you just want to check UK, US, Canadian, or Australian spelling), you can use the built-in styles without any customisation. Just select the style that you want before you press ‘Start’. You only need to customise PerfectIt if you want it to check your specific house style.

Creating a new style

If you’ve decided that you do want to customise PerfectIt and are ready to learn more, the first thing to do is to add a new style. This video explains how:

You can have one style sheet for every style manual (or client) that you work with. So repeat those steps for every style sheet that you want to create.

Customising settings

When you’ve created a new style sheet, you can edit it in PerfectIt’s style sheet editor. This video looks at the ‘Settings’ tab and shows how to check your preferences for lists, compounds, and headings. For example, you can set PerfectIt to enforce punctuation at the end of a bulleted list or to control title case in headings:

The next video shows how to use the settings for numbers in sentences and Oxford (serial) commas. You can turn Oxford commas off or on, and you can choose whether numbers in sentences should be spelled out or presented in numerals. In addition, it shows how to set a number of style points such as thousand separators and non-breaking spaces in measurements and dates:

Search and replace

You can modify PerfectIt’s tests by adding particular words that PerfectIt should find. In addition, you can choose words or phrases that PerfectIt should suggest as fixes. To see this, go to the ‘Always Find’ tab in PerfectIt’s style sheet editor. Each test within that tab is a little different. This video shows how to add searches to the tests of hyphenation, dashes, accents, and phrases in capitals:

The next video looks at PerfectIt’s different tests of spelling as well as the test of phrases to consider:

The final video on the ‘Always Find’ tab covers the test of comments that are accidentally left in the text and the test of abbreviations that appear in two forms. Then there is a more advanced tip on adding exceptions:

Additional tests

PerfectIt’s style sheet editor has tabs for PerfectIt’s tests of italics, prefixes, and superscripts and subscripts. This video covers all three, and shows how, in addition to switching the settings, you can add additional words/phrases to each test:

If you’re not familiar with wildcard searches in Word, it’s worth reading up on those before watching the next video. Two great sources to look at are Jack Lyon’s Advanced Find and Replace for Microsoft Word (an especially good resource for beginners) and Graham Mayor’s article on Finding and Replacing Characters Using Wildcards (a useful reminder for users who are already familiar with the concepts of wildcard search).

For those who are comfortable with wildcards, this video shows how you can include them in a PerfectIt style sheet:

An even easier way

The videos above explain all of the features in PerfectIt’s style sheet editor. However, if you’re concerned about the time involved in entering all the preferences in your style manual, there is a way to complete the task gradually. And it’s really easy. This video shows how you can amend a style sheet as you work without ever opening up PerfectIt’s style sheet editor:

Sharing styles

The great thing about style sheets is that it only takes one person to prepare them. After that, you can share the style with anyone at your organisation. This video shows how to share your style:

Slow and steady…

If you have spare time to set aside to prepare a style sheet, that’s fantastic. But that’s a luxury that many people don’t have. So what we recommend is to start with an existing style and amend that (as shown in the first video above). Then go through and complete the preferences in the ‘Settings’ tab (the second and third videos). Then stop and just do a few minutes per day after that. Adding to styles incrementally as you work is easy (the ninth video). And if you add just two or three items to a style sheet with each document you check, then you’ll quickly have a style sheet that saves time and improves checking for everyone at your organisation. And it doesn’t cost a penny extra!

Daniel Heuman is the Founder and CEO of Intelligent Editing as well as the developer of PerfectIt.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the SfEP.